The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis-Chapter 384: Later

"Yes," Yaozu said, already hard again because he never wasn’t for long when he was with Xinying. "But slower."

"Don’t forget about the children," she warned, though the word didn’t carry any real weight.

"Mingyu’s there," he countered, which did carry weight. "And Longzi."

"And Yizhen," she added, amused. "And Deming."

"And Yizhen, and Deming," he allowed, amused in turn. "More than enough to look after the children."

He eased out of her and set her feet on the stone.

He flipped her, hands on her hips, and bent her forward with her palms against the hidden door.

He lifted her hair with both hands and spread it over one shoulder, then kissed the back of her neck in a line that made her knees go soft. He caught her before she slid. He always caught her.

"Tell me if anything hurts," he said, not because he needed to ask, but because he liked to hear her tell him.

"Nothing hurts," she said. "It only hurts when you stop."

"Then I won’t," he said, and slid back into her in a long, slow stroke that made both of them breathe like they were learning how.

He set one hand low on her belly and one high on her hip, anchoring, guiding, holding her steady while he took his time.

The corridor shrank around them until it felt like a narrow artery in a body that belonged to the two of them and no one else.

He changed the angle by a small degree.

She made the sound that told him he had chosen well. He did not speed up. He lengthened. The strokes turned to something more like rocking than thrusting, something that asked her to lean more of her weight into his hand.

And she did.

The moment stretched and went thin at the edges. She felt herself start to go again, not a rush, a curl. He held her right at its heart and wouldn’t let her skip past it.

"Please," she whimpered, soft, the word she saved for when she wanted to be given and not take.

He heard that word like prayer and went a breath faster, a breath deeper, until she came again with a sound that was quieter and somehow more intense than the first.

He stayed with her through it, then filled her again with a low sound in his throat that he didn’t try to trap.

He pressed them to the wall and held her there, breathing hard, his palm open over her hand on the stone, their fingers not laced but aligned, like two blades set side by side.

Minutes fell off the end of the day. He didn’t move to dress her.

He liked her like this, undone in the dark he had brought her into, the light she carried inside her still bright enough to show him where to put his mouth when he lifted her hair and kissed the line at the back of her ear.

She turned, slow, space small. He pressed her into the angle where two stones met, and this time the kiss was almost lazy, slow licks, slow bites, the kind that let laughter creep in without ruining the heat.

"You stole me," she said.

"I’ll return you," he said. "Later."

"Later," she agreed.

He pinned her wrists above her head for a second round that lasted longer, all drag and build, long strokes that made the wall cool against her back and his chest hot against her front.

He kept her on the edge until she said his name in the way that meant stop playing. He stopped playing and finished them both with a few hard thrusts that felt like knocking a door off its hinge. He caught her head in his palm so she wouldn’t bump it.

He always thought of that.

They stood breathing each other, pressed together, sweat sticky where skin met skin. He pulled her robe up over her shoulders, slow, and tied the sash with the kind of neat knot Deming would have approved of.

He smoothed the fabric at her waist and adjusted the line over her breast with two fingers, eyes on the work. He liked dressing her almost as much as he liked undoing her.

On the other side of the wall, one of the children shouted, "Found you!" followed by Yizhen’s big dramatic groan.

Mingyu’s laugh came next, low and brief. Deming’s murmur, "Careful by the pond." Longzi’s soft tap against stone—his signal, always two beats, when all was well.

Yaozu rested his forehead against hers. "Once more," he said.

"Once more," she echoed.

He took her mouth, quick and deep, like a last sweet before dinner, then broke away, already tucking himself back in, already retying his belt.

He checked the seam of the secret door with his palm, making sure it would seal clean. He put her hand on the hidden catch. She pressed it. The panel shifted, a hair.

"Now you can find it," he said.

"I’ll forget tomorrow," she said, honest and unbothered.

"I’ll steal you again," he promised.

He listened one more time. The courtyard still sounded like happiness. He slid the panel open a finger’s width and looked out.

Yizhen sprinted past, the smallest girl chasing him with the stick and a war cry.

Mingyu and Deming had moved to the shade now, their heads still bent together.

Longzi’s eyes were on the far wall, not on the screen.

Lin Wei crouched by the pond showing the second child how to bribe the big orange koi.

Yaozu stepped back into the shadow and tugged Xinying against him one last time, his hand spread low at her back, his mouth at her forehead.

He breathed her in, then out, like a man steadying before doing something careful.

"Ready?" he asked.

"For what?"

"To be looked at," he said. "By everyone including me."

She smiled. "Always."

He opened the panel. Light rolled over them. The day took them back.

She stepped into it first, hair a little wild, her mouth a little bruised, and her eyes bright. He followed at her shoulder, expression that easy stillness that told anyone watching he had been nowhere and would be everywhere else if asked.

Yizhen shouted, "I win!" and then, when he saw her, grinned like he knew exactly what she had been up to.

Knowing him, he probably did.

Deming lifted his eyes once, clocked the silk at her shoulder, and looked away to give her the gift of pretending not to see.

Mingyu’s gaze slid over her mouth and softened.

Longzi folded his arms and cut his eyes toward the pillar Xinying had just stepped out from behind, then returned to scanning the far wall as if nothing at all had happened.

Lin Wei kept the smallest from falling in and asked the koi for luck.

"Later," Yaozu said under his breath without moving his mouth.

"Later," she said back, same way.

She walked toward the children; he walked with her, close enough to touch and not touching at all.

The one-year-old stick-wielding terror changed targets and charged them both.

Xinying caught the stick. Yaozu let himself be hit, fell onto the grass like a felled tree, and let the child climb him as if he had always been a mountain built for small feet.

He winked up at Xinying while the little one planted a flag on his chest.

She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him like they were still young and running from guards in alleys.

Mingyu shook his head, amused against his will.

Yizhen declared himself emperor and was dethroned five seconds later by a monarch with grimy hands.

Deming told the koi they were in danger and pretended not to hear Yizhen bargaining for allies. Longzi’s shadow stayed long and cool and close.

Yaozu caught her gaze once more and touched two fingers to his mouth, then to the place on her robe where the knot lay straight because he’d tied it.

She lifted a brow that said I know.

He smiled the small smile he only wore for her, turned his head for the child’s next strike, and missed on purpose.